


Shout It To The Heavens

by Liara_90



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bureaucracy, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluff, Love, Married Life, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot, POV Third Person, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:45:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: The year is 2007, and Willow and Tara are happily married. But there’s still one order of business Tara feels the need to attend to.Canon-divergent from season six. Fluff, love, and paperwork.





	

_Rosenberg-Maclay Residence, San Francisco, California_

_June 2007_

Only after twenty minutes did Tara pause to survey her handiwork, staring down at a notebook filled with a signature that wasn’t yet hers… She stifled a giggle. If anyone had spotted her they no doubt would have teased her _ruthlessly_ , like she was some adolescent with a crush on a cute boy band.

Tara flipped the notebook shut, allowing a small _hmpf_ to escape her. Even after repeating it a hundred-odd times it still sounded just a _little_ off. She figured that was to be expected - she had, after all, been ‘Tara Maclay’ for _literally_ her entire life. It was on her birth certificate and her passport, her Alabama driver’s license and her UC Sunnydale transcripts. Not even boundless love was going to make the transition seamless.

The front door swung open and closed with a now-familiar _creak_. “So, what’s new and exciting in your day?” asked Willow, skipping into the living room with a bounce in her step only one Wicca in the world elicited.

‘ _Speaking of boundless love_ ’, thought Tara, as she tossed the notebook to the coffee table. “Nothing interesting, sweetie,” she called back, allowing her body to sink deeper into the couch’s cushions.

“Liar,” Willow declared, but her tone and her smile were warm. She quickly closed the distance to the couch, letting a backpack fall to the carpet as she did. Tara moved to sit up but Willow placed two fingers on her love’s chest, pushing her oh-so-gently back down. “ _Everything_ you do is interesting.”

Tara’s witty rebuttal was subsumed by Willow’s lips, and then all thought vanished entirely.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about those kisses, nothing that would’ve caused the music to swell or the crowds to cheer. Just soft, gentle touches, lips against lips, against cheeks, against ears and necks and noses. Tara let out a slow, deep _shudder_ of contentment as Willow’s mouth trailed from her collarbone to her jaw, Willow’s hands cradling her head, a touch so familiar and reassuring.

“So, seriously, what’s up, doc?” Willow asked, a subjective eternity later. She gently detached herself from Tara, earning a mock pout for her trouble. Tara pushed herself upright on the cushions, her legs still entangled with her love’s. They stared at each from opposite ends of the couch.

“Nothing’s up,” replied Tara. She was a terrible liar, though, for which Willow loved her even more. “Everything’s, you know, down on the ground. Right where it’s supposed to be.”

“Geez, you didn’t even give me the whole ‘I’m-haven’t-actually-finished-my-dissertation-yet-so-don’t-call-me-doc’ speech,” teased Willow. She poked at Tara’s knee with her foot, a rainbow-striped sock nudging comfortable blue denim. “Come on, get with the bean-spilling, lady.”

A small smiled curled around Tara’s face. Without conscious thought her eyes darted to the notebook resting on the coffee table. Conspiratorially. _Treacherously_.

Willow followed her gaze, her expression soon awash with conflicting emotions. Above all, still, was the happiness that simply being close to Tara brought her, warm and bright. There was curiosity, expressed through raised eyebrows. A sly smirk at the possibility of embarrassing tease-fuel being discovered. But also a nervousness, a hint of concern ringing her eyes. The muted worry that something was, in some way, _wrong_.

“Can I peak?” asked Willow, not bothering to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything. “Not that I’m trying to get all _Nancy Drew and the Enigmatic Notebook_ on you.” Willow sunk deeper into the couch’s cushions. “Or you know maybe I could just let you have your privacy like a normal, non-stalk-y person.” She paused, eyes widening. “Hey, how about we could just pretend we never had this conversation? Like a forgetting spell, but without all the non-consensual magicks.”

Tara scooped up Willow’s foot in her hands. Willow squirmed a little as her love traced a finger across the sole of her socked foot, the tickling stroke eliciting a small laugh. “ _Or_ ,” said Tara, pulling the ankle socks off of Willow’s feet, “maybe my subconscious secretly _wanted_ you to stumble across that.” She planted a quick kiss on Willow’s bare foot. “But of course _I_ wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Your subconscious, eh?” Willow leaned over from the couch, fingers curling around the spine of the notebook. Despite Tara’s strongly-implied consent she still glanced at her wife before lifting it, waiting for the wink and the nod to proceed. “Subconsciouses are the _worst_.”

Tara drew her knees up to herself as her love flipped open her notebook, fiddling listlessly with Willow’s sock. She bowed her head, watching through a veil of flaxen hair as Willow’s eyes skimmed the pages...

_Tara Rosenberg._

Tara had scrawled the name out dozens of times, a cheap blue pen filling page after page until her hand was stained with ink. She’d honestly just wanted to see what it would look like, practise it a few times so the flow of her wrist felt smooth and natural. And then she’d gotten a little… _over-enthusiastic_.

She liked starting her surname with a flowing ‘ _R_ ’ instead of a jagged ‘ _M_ ’. She liked ending the second ‘ _a_ ’ in ‘ _Tara_ ’ and then beginning the capital ‘ _R_ ’ with one elongated flourish. She liked the way the letters arranged themselves on the line. How the finished signature appeared at a glance, and under close scrutiny. The name just felt _right_ \- through her pen, on her lips, in her heart.

Willow flipped the notebook shut a second later, a scarlet flush coloring her cheeks. “Wow. Um. Okay. That was definitely in the ‘ _Things I Was Not Expecting_ ’ department.” Her voice had pitched upwards, as it had a habit of doing when she was caught off-guard.

“What exactly _were_ you expecting?” asked Tara, pouring as much reassurance into her voice as she could. “Twenty pages of kinky sex fantasies?” She leaned forward to kiss Willow, and the notebook fell to the floor with a dull _slap_.

“ _Hehe_ ,” Willow giggled softly as Tara bit her lower lip, holding onto it for a long second. “I mean, I wouldn’t be _horrified_ if I tripped over that by accident.”

“So?” Tara leaned back a little, giving Willow enough space to sit upright. “What do you think?”

“I think I want to know how you found out about my long-lost sister, who funnily enough had the same name as you,” replied Willow, managing to keep her face straight. “We did _everything_ to keep her a secret from the world. Poor- ” Tara lobbed a cushion at her. “ _Oof_. Hey - no throwing the throw pillows!”

Tara snickered at that. Willow reached down and scooped up the notebook again, this time staring at the signatures on the first page without all the shock and surprise.

“So… You figured it’s time to drop the whole ‘Maclay’ thing from your name,” said Willow, her head swaying slightly as she spoke. “Can’t say I blame you, what with the whole sexist-homophobic-disowning-pretending-you’re-a-demon’ hootenanny. Not something you want to be reminded of forever.” Willow smiled weakly at her own joke.

“It’s not only that,” Tara corrected. “I mean, _yes_ , it’d be nice not to be associated with my family every time I fill out a form.” Tara paused. “My _old_ family.”

“I know,” replied Willow, softly. There’d been no need for clarification.

“But it’s not just th-them,” Tara continued, one hand rubbing the opposite arm, the memories still discomforting even after all the years passed. She shook her head slightly, steadying herself. “I want to have _your_ name as well.”

Something warm filled Willow’s chest. Several things, really, bubbling like a cauldron. Pride and honor. Excitement and trepidation. Love. A _whole_ lotta love.

“So?” Willow was snapped from her reverie by the single syllable. Tara was looking at her, eyes likes oceans.

“So what?” The world-renowned witch was suddenly a sophomore again, being called on by the professor as punishment for drifting off.

“Can I have it?” Tara stared expectantly at her. “Have… your name?”

Willow blinked. “Tara… Tara of _course_ you can, sweetie,” said Willow, pulling her wife over to and atop her. Their bodies entwined, hands and lips finding purchase wherever they could. “Everything I have I’d give to you in a heartbeat.”

Tara’s lips covered Willow’s. “ _You_ ,” she declared, after breaking the seal with a wet _pop_ , “have to be the World’s Dorkiest Romantic.”

“Yeah,” admitted Willow, exhaling the word. “But it’s part of my charm.” She giggled as Tara clambered over her again, the tips of their noses brushing.

Tara planted a kiss on Willow’s brow before sitting upright, allowing her wife to follow suit a second later. Their feet rubbed each other, almost unthinkingly.

“Not that I’m trying to sprinkle seeds of doubt everywhere,” Willow tentatively began, a foot sliding up her wife’s leg, “but you’re sure about this?”

“What’s there to be unsure about?” Tara easily replied, shifting her leg slightly so Willow’s foot could trail up her thigh.

“Well, I mean, we can’t exactly pretend we’re not married if we’re Mrs. and Mrs. Rosenberg,” Willow pointed out. “You know, at, like, fancy restaurants and stuff. With reservations.”

Tara straightened up slightly, a smile on her face but steel in her eye. “I’ve been done hiding for a long time, baby,” she said, her voice iron draped in silk. “Your girl ain’t afraid of no _maître d'_.” Tara let slip a pinch of Southern _twang_ , earning her a smile. She leaned forward, finding Willow’s hands with hers. “At least, not _anymore_.” Willow tried to say something, but her heart was too melted for anything but mumbled nothings to come out. Tara giggled and kissed her. “Does _that_ answer your question?”

Willow smiled, one knee bouncing with nervous energy. “Mostly,” she admitted. “Um, _full disclosure_ \- also kind of a Jewish name. Not usually a problem but it _can_ get you shifty looks here and there.”

Tara let her jaw drop in a pantomime of shock. “ _You’re Jewish_!” she exclaimed, barely able to keep a straight face. Her hands flew to her head. “Oh my god, what must my family think?!”

Willow snorted. “Ha- _ha_ , very funny,” she said, keeping her tone deadpan. “You _sure_ you’re not doing this just to flip the ol’ bird at your folks one last time?” She hesitated. “‘ _Cuz_ I mean, I’m _totally_ cool with that, eff-why-eye.” Willow’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “ _Between you and me, not exactly a huge fan of the in-laws_.”

A wry half-smile crept to Tara’s face. “I’m sure, baby,” she stated, definitively, before finding Willow’s head and cradling it in her hands. Strands of dark red hair slipped through her fingers. “I don’t want your name to spite a bunch of bigots in ‘Bama. I’m doing it because I want my mountain of roses, Willow Rosenberg.”

Her words were ambrosia in her lover’s ears, sensuous as any touch. “When do we do it?” Willow murmured, Tara’s breath hot on her skin. “Or you do it. Do the paperwork, I mean.”

“No time like the present,” said Tara with a toothy grin. She planted a kiss on Willow’s bared throat, sucking on the skin.

“ _Mmmgh_ ,” Willow groaned, in a noise that definitely wasn’t words. “Can it wait thirty minutes?” she pleaded, fiddling with the button on Tara’s jeans. “ _Please_?”

“ _Hmm_ ,” mused Tara, able to play the coy lover so much better than her wife. “I suppose you _are_ letting me steal your name…”

Willow’s nails dug into Tara’s back, and thirty minutes proved to be a _naively_ conservative estimate.

* * *

Tara had long come to believe that bureaucracy belonged to its own, particularly asinine, family of demons. 

They trekked the short distance to the Superior Court for San Francisco County, a squat and unremarkable building Willow knew she’d driven past a dozen times without glancing twice at. San Francisco City Hall was to their backs, and the tower of UC Hastings watched over them. Tara smiled a little at that. It seemed appropriate for this to happen in the shadow of the University of California, even if it wasn’t Sunnydale’s.

They entered the courthouse, and were soon swept into its labyrinthine underbelly, with its forms and its documents as cryptic as any runes.

The better part of an hour later, Tara let out a vaguely disgruntled sigh, still struggling to find a good surface to fill out the official paperwork on. It turned out that changing one’s name wasn’t quite like renewing a passport or registering a small business, as it technically required a court order. So there she was, scribbling away in a windowless room and trying to ignore just how _cold_ the process felt.

Tara had wanted to wait to get married. Not out of propriety or ambivalence, _goddess_ no - she wanted it more than almost anything in the world. But she’d wanted to fight for it to be legal _here_ , in her newfound home of California. Willow, while not _quite_ able to conceal her disappointment, had been supportive of her decision. Some of the court cases underway looked promising, and surely public opinion would turn the tide in their favor soon enough...

Tara’s decision hadn’t been able to withstand the tag-teaming of Xander and Buffy, who made rather persuasive arguments about their lives being too short and too precarious to put official consummation on indefinite hold. Buffy hadn’t _quite_ guilt-tripped Tara into accepting Willow’s on-standby proposal, but she’d certainly lent a helping hand. She’d just reminded Tara that _hey_ , sometimes people died suddenly in this line of work. _Sure_ would be a tragedy if they never got around to saying ‘ _I do_ ’.

Tara had scowled at Buffy for that, but in the end, the Slayer had been right.

It hadn’t exactly taken an overabundance of hinting before Willow was down on one knee before her, proffering a diamond on the bluffs overlooking Sunnydale. And Tara had never once regretted her decision. Her only source of remorse, in fact, was that it had been done with so little pomp. She’d never thought herself the kind of girl who needed an elaborate wedding with all the dresses and cakes ( _certainly_ not since the realizations puberty brought), but everything had still felt a little… _soulless_.

They’d caught a flight to Seattle and then the bus to Vancouver, crossing into Canada in 2006, just before the spring equinox. Hand-in-hand they walked into an office of the Province of British Columbia, their ‘wedding’ little more than a passionate kiss between the signing of forms. Tara hated the insanity of it all, of being married _here_ but not _there_ , almost Kafkaesque in its absurdity. But being married _somewhere_ was better than being married _nowhere_ , she’d been forced to admit...

Willow had wanted something _more_ , if not a full wedding ceremony than at least a good party, but the Scoobies had been scattered then, Giles and Buffy able to spare but a day to act as formal witnesses. They’d settled for a nice sushi lunch, at a restaurant overlooking the water and the mountains, and for a promise of something _better_ in the future...

Tara ( _still_ ) hated paperwork.

“You know,” she mused aloud, leaning back in a chair that was physically impossible to get comfortable in, “I once was talking with a witch from this coven in Orkney. They’ve got a really nice ritual for when one of them wants to change their name.” Tara’s pen seemed to run out of ink, so she scribbled an angry circle in the corner of the form, trying to coax more life from it. “They have these enchanted runes carved from sandstone, which have your old name on them. And then you lay them out in the Scapa Flow on a full moon, and by the end of the lunar circle the tides will have eroded them until they show your _new_ name.”

“And in the Great State of California, we have Form NC-100,” replied Willow, with that easy enthusiasm of hers. “I’d say they’re _about_ equally poetic.”

She leaned over from the seat beside Tara, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Oh, I was double-checking everything with Giles, and in turns out you have to publish the official name change in like a bunch of newspapers. Seems kinda archaic what with Google and everything; might as well be paying the town crier.” She paused, her expression sobering for a moment. “Though if you want to keep it a secret there’s some different form you can do. I think if we tell ‘em you’re afraid of your family it technically counts as a witness protection thing.” She squirmed a little at that.

Tara set her pen down, capturing Willow’s eyes with hers. Tara looked impossibly calm, her expression one of unwavering certainty. She clasped Willow’s hands, thumbs running over knuckles. “I’m not scared if they know, baby,” Tara murmured. Her grip tightened, the pressure of her grip firm and comforting. “I’m beyond being scared. No, sweetie, I want to shout it to the heavens.”

* * *

_Rosenberg Residence_

_Six days later_

The eighty-two pages of broadsheet landed squarely on Willow’s head, ripping her forcefully from that comfortable netherworld between sleep and consciousness. “ _Oof_ ,” she groaned, rolling over in bed and doing her best to bury her face in a pillow. The blinds were already open, though, golden rays of sunlight illuminating every corner of their bedroom. With a groan that was mostly feigned Willow sat herself upright, leaning back against the headboard. She let the wine-red sheets of their bed fall to her hips.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Tara, covering the distance from the bedroom’s threshold to Willow’s side with a sashay of her hips that was _impossibly_ seductive for this early in the morning. Willow closed her eyes and smiled as Tara brushed errant hairs out of her face, clearing a landing spot for her lips. “I brought you something,” she said, after her mouth had left Willow’s skin, gesturing to _The New Sunnydale Press_ now on the pillow next to her.

“Oh! Is it breakfast in bed?” Asked Willow, pouring excitement into her voice to be deliberately annoying. “You know, to apologize for waking me up so early?”

“It’s eight in the morning, baby, not exactly the crack of dawn,” Tara replied, unapologetically. “And if you’d bought anything other than that sugary junk then breakfast in bed _might_ have been a possibility,” 

“I will also accept ‘breakfast in bed’ as an analogy for sexy times,” Willow counter-offered, eagerly.

Tara rolled her eyes. “This is even better,” she said, refocusing her attention on the _Times_.

“A newspaper?” Willow asked, cocking her head melodramatically. “They still make these?”

Tara slid onto the mattress beside her. Unlike Willow she’d been awake for several hours already, nervous energy having driven her from the bed (lest her tossing and turning wake her wife). One arm slinked around Willow’s shoulders, cradling her close, the other traced idle lines along her thigh. “Go on,” she prodded, her lips perilously close to ear-nibbling distance, “check the Announcements section.”

Willow thumbed through the pages easily. She could feel her own chest rising and falling as her eyes skimmed line after line, with the same manic intensity as when she scanned old tomes for demonic data...

_There!_

_Official Changes of Name._

TARA MACLAY - TARA LAOISE ROSENBERG

Willow felt Tara’s hand over hers, the grip a reassuring squeeze. “There it is,” Tara whispered, as Willow let the newspaper fall limply to her lap. “For all the world to see.”

Something tugged at the back of Willow’s mind, a memory like a thin thread she was trying follow. Even as her heart pounded in excitement and Tara peppered her with kisses, Willow felt her subconscious unravel the thread within her mind…

“Your mother!” she suddenly exclaimed, somewhat inarticulately due to Tara’s mouth over hers. She shook her head, somehow recalling a conversation from a sleepless night many months prior. “That was your mother’s name: Laoise. Her maiden name, I mean.”

Tara shifted back a few inches. “Yeah,” she said, that wry half-smile that was Pure Tara coming to her face. “Sorry for springing this on you-”

“-Nononononono,” Willow hurried to reply, the phonemes blurring together in her haste. “It’s your name, I’m not going to get all Queen of Nomenclature and tell you what you can can’t choose.” She blinked. “And even if I _was_ the Queen I obviously wouldn’t have any problems with it.”

Tara’s smile hadn’t faded. “I knew you wouldn’t,” she said, in that tone of ‘ _I know you_ so _impossibly well, Willow Rosenberg_ ’ that always made her wife blush. “I honestly hadn’t planned on it. But it turns out it doesn’t cost any more to change two names instead of one. And, well… I’ve never had a middle name before.”

“I’m kind of a fan,” replied Willow, agreeably. “Adds a little bit of extra _umph_ to your initials. Also, when I yell at people, it’s more fun when they’ve got a longer name.”

Tara rolled herself atop Willow, pushing her wife deeper into the mattress with the utmost love and care. “Thank you,” she whispered, lowering her hips so their bodies were almost parallel.

“You’re welcome,” Willow answered, unable to keep the silly grin from her face. “Not entirely sure what I did, but _hey_.”

“For being my willow tree,” Tara murmured. She slipped her hands between Willow and the mattress. “For giving me shelter and health and strength. For making me who I am.”

“Pretty sure you did most of that on your own,” Willow replied, letting slip a note of self-deprecation.

“Maybe,” mused Tara, indulging in a long kiss. “But only _you_ could have made me _Tara Rosenberg_.”

Tara kissed her, and Willow kissed back, and names were shouted to the heavens.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, reviews, feedback, and constructive criticisms are _always_ appreciated. A single line saying you enjoyed something will brighten my day. This is my first fic for the fandom, so your thoughts are doubly appreciated.
> 
> Also, since this _is_ my first _BTVS_ fanfic, please forgive me a bit of rambling. It turns out writing for _Buffy_ is _hard_. The timeline is actually remarkably rigid, making it difficult to slot in time for things to ‘happen’ without disrupting the show’s continuity or drifting into canon-divergent territory (which I, obviously, did). My go-to trick is transporting characters I like to an AU of sorts, but so much of the characterization of _Buffy_ ’s dramatis personae is tied up with the events they experience. Take away the Hellmouth and all of a sudden the Scoobies are _very_ different characters with _very_ different lives.
> 
> Dialogue isn’t my strong suit as it is, and [Buffy Speak](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak) is playing on Extra Hard Difficulty. I mean, how on earth is anyone supposed to match Whedon’s way with words? And on top of that, the dialogue is so often sold by the _exceptional_ performances of the cast and the pacing within the episodes. Surprisingly difficult to capture in writing. On top of _that_ Tara’s mannerisms change fairly markedly over three seasons, so you have to kind of figure out which moment of her life you’re running with. In case you’re wondering, for some reason the moment that kept running through my head comes from “[Entropy](http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Entropy)” (right around the 6:00 mark), when Tara whips ‘round and says “ _unofficially?_ ” with the most teasing glint in her eye.
> 
> Originally had a whole subplot involving Tara’s involvement in Proposition 8, but decided to keep it simple for now. Baby steps, and all that


End file.
